Review of The Pale Blue Eye (2022) by Needfiction — 07 Jan 2023
Christian Bale and Harry Melling are good in their roles, and so are the character actors who support them. The cinematography in general is very good, and sometimes stunning, although a bit one note in its either snow or darkness for such a long film.
The main thing is this film can't decide if it wants to be a murder mystery or a tragic tear jerker period piece. The ratings, I think, would go up 20% overall if this didn't have the Lord of the Rings curse, where the director really, really, wants to put an extra ending.
Literally the core mystery is supposedly solved, and then I realized there was 35 minutes left to go. Would have been better to either just let it end at the first "reveal," or move the other endings up and cut out 20 minutes of cultish ceremony and at times very wordy and silly dialogue that goes nowhere.
(Two different characters at different times tell Poe that they just "knew he was the one" for their plot point). Then, some background motivation (without adding spoilers) turns into the main plot at the very end, and it just doesn't work.
Overall, only because of the last 30 minutes, the whole film feels out of balance.
This review of The Pale Blue Eye (2022) was written by Needfiction on 07 Jan 2023.
The Pale Blue Eye has generally received positive reviews.
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